The Age of Vegeterrorism
“Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Animal Liberation Movement?”

by Mat Thomas

VegNews (January 2007)

Last March, several twentysomething animal rights activists known as the SHAC 7 were convicted on multiple felony charges of conspiracy, interstate stalking and domestic terrorism under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992. However, in an unprecedented court battle that put freedom of speech itself on trial, the federal government didn’t find the SHAC 7 guilty of any illegal activity, but rather of running a website that applauded civil disobedience, harassment and property destruction with the aim of financially bankrupting a specific animal research corporation called Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). For these actions, which until that time had been protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the SHAC 7 will spend the next few years of their lives in prison and must also collectively pay the target of their unorthodox campaigns over $1 million in restitution.

Whether or not individual vegetarian advocates personally condone SHAC’s controversial tactics, the trial’s outcome has grave implications for all activists, both in the animal protection movement and beyond. Emboldened by their victory against animal rights “extremists,” captains of industry and the politicians they employ are now pushing a bill through Congress to protect corporations’ prerogative to profit from animal suffering without having to bear activists’ pesky interference. It’s called the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), and if it becomes law, it could potentially criminalize most currently legal forms of vegetarian advocacy. 

As the AETA is currently written, causing any business classified as an “animal enterprise” (e.g., factory farms, fur farms, vivisection labs, rodeos, circuses, zoos, etc.) to suffer a profit loss could be interpreted as a “terrorist” act punishable by a lengthy prison sentence—even if the company’s financial decline is caused by investigations, whistleblowing, peaceful protests, consumer boycotts, media campaigns or leafleting outside of a business. Passage of the AETA could herald an ugly new era of paranoiac government repression the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the dark days of Senator Joe McCarthy, when dissenting voices were silenced by accusations of Communistic leanings. We could now be witness to history repeating itself, with blacklists, loyalty oaths and House Committees on Un-American Activities just around the corner. 

If mainstream activists are labeled “terrorists” for exercising their Constitutionally-granted First Amendment privileges, it will have a chilling effect on the entire animal protection movement and make advocates and organizations reluctant to engage in effective actions for which they could face arrest. The public could even come to consider vegetarians as a group guilty by association because our refusal to eat meat results in profit loss for an animal enterprise. While causing exploitive industries to lose money has proven essential to the success of all progressive social justice causes—including vegetarianism—it could soon become merely another civil liberties casualty of the rapidly expanding War on Terror.

To learn more and read the House and Senate versions of the AETA, visit stopaeta.org.